Beretta.net

Edited for updates: I have renamed this car as the Bambi killer. You can now mark down 3 deer murdered by this beretta! I guess naming it The Beast on Fuelly was an apt choice. oh well - Resume original post:




Three months ago or so, I was talking with another member on here, 95berettabase, and at that time, he was looking for some advice on repairing things with his base.

I guess a bit later he decided to sell the base instead. About the time I bought the red 94 base for a parts bananza, he asked if I was interested in buying his. I was actually looking for another beretta to drive, so I could keep the Z off the road a bit more.

Why buy a beretta? Well they are a hell of a lot easier for me to keep running... I have learned so much more about them in the past few years than I ever knew the previous 14.

Anyway, at that time I had funds tied up in the red POS. So once I got parts sold and the car scrapped, I was open for purchase again.

So we figured out a deal, and he offered to deliver it, which was good. I have no truck and the van is down, so it was going to be a bit difficult to come get it.

This past Sat, he brought it up to me. Brandon is a class act, so anyone that would ever deal with him on here will not be dissapointed.

I have previously seen this car, back in 09 when I first got to meet him, Kyle, Sara and Brett.

That was a lot of fun, even though the weather sucked major ass.

Anyway, here are the things I need to do to it in no particular order:

Take some more pictures for you guys. LOL
Swap the wheels to the steel rim cooper set for winter use. I did get two full sets of tires, so that will be cake, once I get the lug nuts from Brandon... lol
Get a seat cover from another base with the garnet red interior.
Charge the battery and go through the car. See what all I have to work with.
Have to address the possible LIMG issue. Also going to pressure test the cylinders, make sure I don't have a possible HG issue.
Go over the brakes. Probably change out the springs, shocks and struts, since I do have brand new ones in boxes for a base style suspension. If I don't do this right away, may do it next spring when I go back to the American rims.
Buy a new hood for it. Found one in MI that is already black even. 50 bucks.
Eventually work in LED lighting all the way around. Similar but a bit different than the Z.
There is some body rust to deal with, but the underside of what I could see so far looked really good. Will be going over it further later this week when I have time.

Anyways, I just have the one pic of it right now:



More will be posted tomorrow, once I have pics taken. So keep checking, I will be getting this back on the road very soon!

Such a badass car you have there Chris

I'll get those lugnuts up there ASAP. I'm assuming my new battery went to hell eh?

Ok, pics are up!

















Enjoy! Hopefully I will have more time to work on it a bit this week. Working on prepping parts to paint for the van right now. Yay.

95BerettaBase wrote:Such a badass car you have there Chris

I'll get those lugnuts up there ASAP. I'm assuming my new battery went to hell eh?

Not too worried but will need them soon. Trying to charge the battery right now. Alarm went off immediately, but was able to silence it pretty quick. Oil looks clean, didn't see a trace of coolant in it yet. So hmmmm

Anyway, will find out soon enough. Probably will loosen the pan bolt, see if any drips out, I believe coolant settles to the bottom.....

There was oil at the bottom of my plastic drain pan when I drained it.

The oil in it now is brand new Quaker State Higher Mileage oil with 5 miles on it lol. That is the only oil I ever ran in the car.

There was oil, or there was coolant you meant?

No worries. I will get it taken care of. Probably will fire it up here later this afternoon, see what she sounds like, providing there isn't a lot of coolant in the oil. I had an ambulance run this afternoon, just got back home actually! lol

Ok, I was surprised today....

I had the battery charge for a bit, getting it built back up.

Then a little while ago, I pulled out my oil pan, went underneath and loosened the plug, to see what came out. Clean looking oil. Can't see or smell any coolant in it at all. Outside of it having a short Fram filter, it looks to be in good shape there.

So I went ahead and fired it over. Took a bit to get fuel into the system, but after several tries it finally fired over and ran.

Damn B, this thing has loud exhaust! Is it the muffler or did it have a hole in it someplace? LOL Will have to take a vid of it later, but it was running really smooth. Could hear a tick but it faded out after I took it around the block (it needed gas).

Thing shifts better than the Z does right now. Mine is sloppy and er.. bumpy in comparison (not that its bad, but you can just tell the difference). I'm thinking that tranny has been rebuilt sometime in the past. Feels way too tight to be that many miles on it, but that's my opinion.

Rode fairly nice, very slight pull to the right, but no odd vibrations, no clunking noises, etc. Brakes pretty evenly.... Engine seems to have good acceleration under WOT. Temp tends to fluctuate more often than the Z, but I can fix that I think. Needs the correct oil pressure sensor/sending unit. I may already have a new one in the box, will have to check.

I think I will need to fix the driver's seat. It will not move! LOL

I also noticed a whistling noise, I have to assume its from the modded air intake tube? Never had one of these, so no idea.

Anyway, so far so good. Seems to run well.

I'm glad to see it went to good hands.

Now drop that bitch!!

Wanako wrote:I'm glad to see it went to good hands.

Now drop that bitch!!

LOL

If anything I need to raise it. Winter here gets deep. Lowered cars do NOT go through snow very well at all. If things go well, may have it on the road by sometime next week. My Z would have a hard time with snow over 4". The base should be better, no ground effects or air dam spoiler.

However, it does have a nice set of new adjustable shocks and new springs that can be installed, so if its the kind of adjustment that allows for ride height, great, but I suspect its the type that lets you adjust the damping effect and from what I read on the box for the springs, it looks like these lower it a bit. lol I have yet to read the box on the struts and shocks!

Yeah, suspension stuff is a un-tested world for me really. I know these are probably useless on the Z, as they are made to match a base setup. At least that was what I was told. lol

For now, it gets winterized, tire swapped, few things fixed and its hitting the pavement. And I will be keeping a very close eye on the coolant system/engine oil for a while. Haven't even found coolant leaking anywhere yet on it. Nor have I smelled any. Even the Z gives me a whiff of it every now and then, but I know from where, just been too lazy to replace the fitting on that one. Though I have yet to know if this has green or red, but I think only the late 95/96 years had red right?? The tank looks like my 94 with a black top. Not that all whitish one like the 96s have.

Oh, and the radio works. Have to have that. Just need to tune it now. hehe

The exhaust is loud because I installed a Flowmaster 40 Series a few years back, As for the transmission being rebuilt........its all original. I bought it at 149,000 miles and at that time I was informed everything was original. I've had transmission flushes performed and new tranny filters, but that's it. The whistling you hear is coming from the Tranzgenic CAI. The light ticking you hear is probably the lifters ticking. Its done that as long as I've owned the car.

If you want to keep the base at stock ride height, put the new suspension on the Z26. It will be an upgrade over FE3. Whoever told you it was "matched" for a base has got to be full of crap.

Glad to see the car stay in the community.

Info on these "adjustable shocks" you speak of...

95BerettaBase wrote:The exhaust is loud because I installed a Flowmaster 40 Series a few years back, As for the transmission being rebuilt........its all original. I bought it at 149,000 miles and at that time I was informed everything was original. I've had transmission flushes performed and new tranny filters, but that's it. The whistling you hear is coming from the Tranzgenic CAI. The light ticking you hear is probably the lifters ticking. Its done that as long as I've owned the car.

Oh well then I like the exhaust. It wasn't as loud as mine with a hole in the muffler at least a few years back.

I guess the transmission has just held up well then. Just feels better than the Z is all, and I have always taken care of the Z pretty much the same way, no flushes though.
The whistling is no biggie, figured that is what it was, and the ticking I knew about. The Z makes its old cold noises too. Overall, I'm really not too worried.

woody90gtz wrote:If you want to keep the base at stock ride height, put the new suspension on the Z26. It will be an upgrade over FE3. Whoever told you it was "matched" for a base has got to be full of crap.

Glad to see the car stay in the community.

Interesting. As for who, it was Brandon. But maybe he didn't know that specific detail, probably bought the items as they fit the base, but they can probably be fitted onto any beretta, and they make them the same or something. No biggie. I will do some research though, see what I choose to do with them.

3X00-Modified wrote:Info on these "adjustable shocks" you speak of...

Here are the pics. Maybe their not adjustable now that I look at the box...







That's what I have that came with the car.

DTMAce wrote:

95BerettaBase wrote:The exhaust is loud because I installed a Flowmaster 40 Series a few years back, As for the transmission being rebuilt........its all original. I bought it at 149,000 miles and at that time I was informed everything was original. I've had transmission flushes performed and new tranny filters, but that's it. The whistling you hear is coming from the Tranzgenic CAI. The light ticking you hear is probably the lifters ticking. Its done that as long as I've owned the car.

Oh well then I like the exhaust. It wasn't as loud as mine with a hole in the muffler at least a few years back.

I guess the transmission has just held up well then. Just feels better than the Z is all, and I have always taken care of the Z pretty much the same way, no flushes though.
The whistling is no biggie, figured that is what it was, and the ticking I knew about. The Z makes its old cold noises too. Overall, I'm really not too worried.

woody90gtz wrote:If you want to keep the base at stock ride height, put the new suspension on the Z26. It will be an upgrade over FE3. Whoever told you it was "matched" for a base has got to be full of crap.

Glad to see the car stay in the community.

Interesting. As for who, it was Brandon. But maybe he didn't know that specific detail, probably bought the items as they fit the base, but they can probably be fitted onto any beretta, and they make them the same or something. No biggie. I will do some research though, see what I choose to do with them.

3X00-Modified wrote:Info on these "adjustable shocks" you speak of...

Here are the pics. Maybe their not adjustable now that I look at the box...







That's what I have that came with the car.

I have that same setup eibach/kyb on the Quad Z and it definitely gives the car a nice stance without being too low. It's definitely is lower than stock ride height.

Here's the best pic I got for the ride height..

I probablyy should have been more thorough. When I said the suspension components were for the Base only, I meant for the correct year as I think '96I was a bit different. The shocks aren't adjustable, they are just called Gas-adjust. It had been a long day for me that night so I really wasn't on top of my game lol.